Karaoke Forums

A host, entertains all their guests equally... Imagine all the people sharing the world as one... I especially like it when someone tries to berate a singer, by telling them that they suck, because then I get to allude: only if the one they're with is lucky! Free thinkers are good customers & help growth. Restrictive thinkers constrict strangle & smother the environment. Promote variety, it's the spice of life!

I agree entirely. Part of the reason most like me there (I've been a regular there for one and a half, maybe just under two years) is because I bring variety to the show. It breaks the monotony of "five country classics followed by an 80s pop song, rinse and repeat all night" that usually goes on.

It's just two or three bad apples that came in within the past three months and started mouthing about my song choices.

So, since I haven't had to host for a few weeks, I actually wrote a black/thrash metal song with lyrics specifically about it, and did it at karaoke last Sunday just before closing.

It actually shut the bad apples right up, and even the older regulars got a bit of a small giggle from it. All in all, great success.

I think that the problem is a lack of versatility. The same style of song, sung by the same person, over and over and over again simply gets tiresome.

Think of the singer that comes in and picks out only those sad, sorrowful, love-lost, funeral-slow death songs like "He Stopped Loving Her Today" or "The Edmund Fitzgerald" and ONLY in versions that are 5 minutes and longer and that's the ONLY thing they do... because it's "fun for them."

It's not "fun" for anyone else that has to listen to it repeated over and over and over again. It's a one-trick pony and they are not only boring, they are annoying.

I always remind new patrons that we all love different things, & the diversity is in our combined differences & performances. I like & sing many different styles, sometimes purely for shock value. It gets them thinking & when they're thinking they're more open to learn & expand their horizons & even their tolerance levels, when they realize that music comes from the soul & can be very cathartic!

Agreed 1000%. Boring, annoying, horrible singers. But they're 'nice people'. I have 3 of those every Friday. 2 of the 3 spend money. One sings the funeral-slow songs in a monotone, shrill voice, another sings hard rock (AC DC, Scorpions, Guns n Roses) monotone, and she doesn't need a mic. I have to cut it to near zero; her boyfriend sings the worst songs, not quite monotone, but I think he takes lessons from the first 2.

Then, all the patrons hit the bathroom or go outside to smoke. And I don't blame them 1 bit. I try to mitigate the damage by saying, 'great song! Next up is..."

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DJ Don

As the old joke goes...you always clap for karaoke. Sometimes it's because the singer is great. Sometimes it's because the singer is finished.

My pet rudeness peeves are mostly in the stage area-

1) Groups of people who take tables directly in front of the stage and then carry on their own loud private party completely oblivious to and drowning out the singers on stage. If you are not there to listen to the music PLEASE take a table in the back of the room. If you sit up front PLEASE have some respect for the people who are on stage.

2) KJ's who create or allow a loud water cooler atmosphere either at the booth or right in front of the stage.(This is one area that remote program control shines as the KJ can meet and greet people away from the performance area).

3) Just the plain lack of what used to be common courtesy.

But that's what he likes to sing. Why should he be alienated for the benefit of the crowd, when one's job is to let people sing what they wish (excepting some corner cases like songs with excessive obscenity)?

Karaoke is about singing what you love. If anyone in the crowd doesn't like my song choices, for example (when I'm not hosting, mind you; on the rare occasions where I am, I try to keep my song choices as tame as I can), they're always free to take a smoke break.

But if one can't handle sitting through a song/artist/singer/genre they don't like for four or five minutes tops without complaining, that sorta makes them a bit of a whiny baby imo. Grown adults are supposed to be tolerant; not tantrum-throwing, or cliquey and alienating to new guys; this is coming from someone who isn't even 30 yet.

Hay, I can resemble that!

The "ones" I don't like, come in and don't sing and don't like anything. Ya, I get them!

No one is alienating him. He is doing it to himself.

And when you noticed (if you noticed) that almost all of the audience left the room when you get up to sing, wouldn't you feel just a bit "alienated?"

People like chocolate and others like vanilla and even more like strawberry. But most like a little bit of all three. If you keep shoving one flavor in front of them, eventually they'll let you know when you serve it that they don't want it. No matter how enjoyable it is for you to serve it.

He's alienating himself with the same genre in apparently, the wrong location. He should seriously look for a club that favors his genre. Just like there are "country bars" and "old timers bars" and "20-something bars" etc... Don't blame the audience, they are not "alienating HIM" because HE's alienating THEM. And it doesn't matter whether he enjoys the genre or not, he's the one making enemies with his screaming metal music over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over.

A joke may be funny even up to the third time... but even a good joke gets old and annoying and even irritating after the 10th time.

This one-trick-pony needs to find another pasture.

I should probably point out, that there is no such thing as a bad singer. For that matter, there is no such thing as a good singer; there's in practice & out of practice. Nobody was born singing, we're all born screaming & crying. It's all about practice after that. There's also no such thing as tone deaf (even deaf people hear tones)... Usually someone tells someone else that they're tone deaf because they're too lazy, or impatient to help them train their pitch control.
While we weren't born singing, we were born with an unprecedented love of music (I believe it's part of the human soul/experience). To deny any other human the ability to experience/enjoy it, by criticism given too rashly, is the worst kind of abuse.
(if public speaking is feared worse than death (according to surveys) singing/performing has got to be up there!) We need to eliminate "bad singers" or "boring" from the KJ's vocabulary... Just sayin'

Oh yeah there is such a thing as a 'bad' singer and 'good' singer (almost pro quality), we get both regularaly. However there is a thing as to not discriminate between someone who is not so good and those that are far better. Getting everyone to appreciate ALL of the singers no matter how good or bad is the trick! I've had some of my best singers duet with some of my worst singers and still have fun!

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LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

The only difference is practice... I guess your soul can't hear me, right now. Or maybe I am just a crazy hippie... Whatever. Lol

But this thread is not about "good or bad singing." It's more about a singer perceiving rudeness from an audience that doesn't appreciate his favorite genre of music.

He may be he greatest singer of heavy metal on the planet and it's obvious he enjoys it, however the other patrons in the venue in which he chooses to sing it doesn't appreciate it and they certainly don't appreciate that he seems to sing that genre exclusively. He likes it and the rest of the patrons obviously hate it.... but he continues to scream that in their face every single time he gets up to the mic.

So tell me again, who here exactly is the rude one? Is it the "intolerant patrons" that can't sit through his 4-5 minute song or the singer who is "singularly insensitive" to what the rest of the venue considers to be "entertainment?"

Personally, I hate the band Godsmack. I hate the sound, I HATE the music and I just can't tell you how much I can't stand metal, grunge and did I mention Godsmack? I will get up and leave wherever I am because I simply can't stand it and I don't care if the band itself was playing. Now, If you want to call that "rude" because I don't believe I should have to endure something I hate for even 4 or 5 minutes that's okay by me (although you can soften that by calling it "intolerant").

If you want to call me "rude" then fine, I'm rude. However, I think the metal singer here is the rude one since he knows that no one there likes it, whines because they don't, but continues to do it over and over again anyway.

I wouldn't call that rude... Just impatient & intolerant. It sounds as though only a few are likewise, & if you allow any group or individual to dictate what genre is acceptable or not, effectively feeding an environment of intolerance, then you might as well host after party book burnings as well. I grew up hating the twang & drawl of country... Never could do rap (except top 40)...imagine how boring my life (& show) would be if I hadn't expanded my horizons! I can't do rap, but I have learned to appreciate it... I enjoy singing country (especially if I'm sick, as it is one of the easiest genres to emulate vocally). One thing I have never understood: karaoke gospel - given that most shows are done in "places of ill repute" (bars), they don't go over very well, but that doesn't stop me from belting out "O Holy Night," or "Hava Nagela" come December!

But it's not a matter of "impatient and intolerant" just because you say it is. this guy can sing all of the heavy metal/grunge music that he wants to sing every single time he gets up to do it right?

No one is stopping him from singing the type of songs he enjoys.

He simply does not like the reaction that he is getting.

This is not the fault of the audience, this is the fault of the performer. He has decided that his favorite type of song is heavy metal and even though the audience at the venue doesn't appreciate it, he's going to continually and repeatedly, throw it in their face – and then demand that they be "tolerant."

like I said; he needs to find a venue that appreciates his style of music – more often than the average nightclub.

Not necessarily. I know of many people I've met at Karaoke (from over 15 years ago), and they still sing the same songs they were singing then, and they still sound every bit as bad today as they did then. How much more practice do they need (after 15 years of singing the same 2 or 3 songs) before they get/sound better?

You would've been out of my show last night. Had Godsmack, Slipknot, Tool, Megadeth & a few other metal tunes done quite a bit. But then again that is a somewhat regular occurance.

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LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

If 15 years with no improvement... Maybe they're not receiving the proper positive responses. Or absolutely no one is offering CONSTRUCTIVE criticism. Or perhaps they are happy with what they're doing. I have an autistic person who used to scream songs out of pitch so loud they hardly needed a mic. I have a mentally challenged individual, who sings monotone... Both of them HAVE improved over the years (I've been doing this for 18 years), just very slightly & in ways that to most are just nuances that are barely noticed (mostly because people generally don't care enough to notice). I had the luxury & benefit of having a very good & wise choir teacher, in high school, who would take on people who were lied to & told they were tone deaf, the most timid of singers and even the most self important bloated ego singers & turn them into concert soloists. One of any human's biggest obstacles will always be self esteem. If you can't find it in your heart to nurture these people & their self-esteem, you are only contributing to the problems that face our race. As to song selection, encouraging variety is never a bad idea. Censorship, is always a bad idea... In my opinion.